Hidden Depths: Neurological Treatment - How to Motivate Mental Health Patients to Seek Treatment
How one pharmaceutical company used Hidden Methodology to craft a campaign that not only educated patients but empowered them to proactively improve their health.
Our Hidden Depths case study series wants to move beyond surface-level customer insights, sparking transformation by truly understanding people at a deeper, human level.
When a major pharmaceutical client launched a medication targeting a neurological side effect of antipsychotic drugs, they found that patients were reluctant to seek treatment. With an urgent need to understand the drivers behind this potentially life-limiting hesitance, they sought a solution that would help them reach their patients on an emotional level.
Understanding Reluctant Mental Health Patients
Despite the availability of the treatment, patients were hesitant to seek it out – largely due to a reluctance to add more medication to their existing regimen.
Mental health patients, particularly those on complex drug therapies, often feel burdened by the volume of their daily medication – while the lingering stigma associated with mental health conditions often means patients avoid discussing their treatment. This reluctance presented a significant hurdle in ensuring patients received the care they needed for these complex neurological side effects.
Recognizing this challenge, our client aimed to launch a direct-to-consumer (DTC) campaign to communicate with this hard-to-reach patient population – encouraging them to seek treatment for a condition they may not prioritize. Given the sensitive and nuanced nature of mental health conditions, traditional marketing approaches were unlikely to resonate with this audience. The challenge, therefore, was to craft a campaign that would deeply connect with the emotional and psychological state of these patients – breaking through the barriers of fear, denial, and stigma.
Employing the Hidden Depths Methodology
To address this complex challenge, we employed our Hidden Depths methodology: a psychoanalytically-informed approach aimed at uncovering the unconscious emotional and psychological drivers influencing patient behavior. This unique methodology is designed to go beyond surface-level insights and tap into the deeper layers of patient motivation and emotion. Through extensive research, including in-depth interviews and semiotic analysis, the Hidden Depths approach was able to reveal the unspoken fears, anxieties, and internal conflicts faced by patients dealing with mental health conditions.
Uncovering Emotional Barriers
We found that patients’ resistance stemmed from a complex web of emotional factors. By mapping out their emotional and psychological barriers using a semiotic framework, our research team identified three key emotional territories that would then serve as the foundation for the new creative campaign:
Uncomfortable Truths: Patients often fear facing the reality of their condition and its side effects, as doing so would require them to confront uncomfortable truths about their mental health.
Feeling Small: Many patients feel diminished by their mental health struggles, perceiving themselves as powerless in the face of their condition.
Feeling Owned: Patients frequently feel as though their medications control them, and adding another treatment to their regimen exacerbates the sense of being owned by their condition.
The importance of reclaiming autonomy
Armed with these deep psychological insights, our client was able to develop a highly targeted DTC campaign that resonated with the unique emotional challenges faced by mental health patients. By addressing the fears, feelings of insignificance, and sense of being controlled, the campaign helped to break through the barriers preventing patients from seeking treatment.
The campaign reframed the conversation around treatment for the neurological side effect – positioning it not as an additional burden, but an opportunity for patients to regain control over their health. By using specific language and visuals that connected with patients' emotional needs, the campaign succeeded in encouraging a previously reluctant audience to seek treatment for their condition.